


stardust and memory and a little bit of romance

by Sasskarian



Series: Home is Where You Are [6]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Electric Kisses, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Meet the Family, Musical Instruments, Romance, and kallo being a good friend, and sara and jaal break all kinds of First Contact rules, and there's a family celebration, in which we meet the Ama Daravs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21746761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasskarian/pseuds/Sasskarian
Summary: “Officially,” Vetra started, too casually, “you and Jaal were making nice with the locals in ‘diplomatic relations.’”“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Sara asked dryly.Vetra handed her a datapad without looking. “Tann threw a polite hissy fit that we weren’t en route to the Nexus, so we— being Drack and myself— just as politely told him to frag off. I hope it wasn’t in vain.”Sara scanned the email, winced at the wording, and then braced herself on the handrail to watch the game wind down. Jaal’s eyes met hers through the bay window and she shivered, every nerve along her spine lighting up like Christmas lights at his soft smile.
Relationships: Jaal Ama Darav/Female Ryder | Sara, Jaal Ama Darav/Ryder
Series: Home is Where You Are [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/700698
Comments: 12
Kudos: 52





	stardust and memory and a little bit of romance

**Heleus Cluster | Faroang System | Havarl | Ama Darav Daar**

*******

“Wow.”

Jaal chuckled against her ear, hands firmly on her waist; a good thing, probably, or she’d be on her face on the floor. “It is… a lot, I know.” 

“No!” Sara protested, only wilting when Jaal tilted his head at her. “...okay, maybe a little. There’s just— a _lot_ of them?” 

Jaal laughed again, leaning his forehead against hers. This time, Sara was ready and felt the current start at that point, a gentle, quiet spark that lit up her entire nervous system. If she closed her eyes, she could trace the path of it, a hard-to-describe hum that seeped through her skin and wrapped warm and content around her bones. Not quite a tickle or an itch, but a presence, sliding through her body the way she and Jaal were sliding into each other’s lives. 

“We like to live like this,” he murmured, contentment wound through his voice in a way she’d rarely heard. “Even when you’re lonely, being surrounded by people who love you can help.”

That simple truth tightened Sara’s throat. Memories of a lifetime of moving around gave Jaal’s statement a handy framework: Scott and their mother hated, _hated_ , every move, but Sara was like her father. Nothing but shells of freckled skin eager for a dozen alien suns, a core built of wanderlust and a driving need to know _everything_. Each new place was full of adventure, excitement, and as long as she had the touchstones her family provided, that was all she’d needed. 

“We have a saying like that,” she replied softly, watching as he bustled around the small room. There was something… intimate in being like this, alone in his sanctuary, that put a flutter in her heart. “Home is where your heart is. My dad and I always modified it to home is where you are.”

Sometimes, it seemed like Sara tripped through this new, wounded galaxy, scattering herself across it and surviving only by the skin of her teeth and her more talented crew. Pathfinder was never meant to be hers, and with every new promise and wrong to right, she felt like pieces of her were breaking off, spinning into new, unstable orbits and becoming satellites around broken worlds. The Scourge drifted around the paths she wove and, like the lightning bolts etched on her father’s footlocker, its presence choked out more and more of her hope. 

But times like this, with Jaal’s gently shining eyes and that now-familiar, beloved hum in her chest, she thought maybe this found family of theirs could help her come together into a person again. 

Like moons caught in a planet’s gravity, the presence of the team stabilized her and kept her from falling too far. Drack with his grumps and millennia-old stories brought the smoky scent of desert fires back from her childhood, the rumble of his voice a baseline to the clear, sweet romance he and the doc thought no one noticed. Lexi herself was a cool hand on a fevered brow, a healer’s smile, and just the right amount of steel in a mother’s voice. Liam and PeeBee, with their wild laughter and terrible puns, were twin bright spots in the fabric of Heleus, free spirited pranksters who found kinship in each other despite age, species, and lifespan differences. 

_Guiding stars,_ a whimsical part of her whispered, thinking of the way Vetra clucked and fretted, hiding her bruised dreamer’s heart behind plates of sarcasm and brutal efficiency, the way Gil and Cora rounded out the dreamers with sleight-of-hand laughs and the hopeful smell of roses. And Kallo, with his quick hands and gentle humor, with his fears and all-together sheer _humanity_ , a perfect foil for Suvi and the quiet, sacred whisper of prayers and tea drifting through the Tempest on long nights. 

“Home is where you are,” Jaal said, thoughtful. Sara shook herself out of her musings as he sat with a small chest on his lap, fingers nervously tracing the dents and dings in the metal. “I like that.”

“I like you,” she said automatically, slapping a hand over her mouth. _Stupid_ , shouted her heart, but Jaal just laughed, cheeks flushing. “Um, sorry. Knee-jerk response, you know?”

“Is it?” he said, soft and low, the press of his current swelling until it filled her chest. Knees trembling only a little, Sara sat next to him, watching the way his thumb played with the catch of the footlocker. Twice, he opened his mouth like he was going to say something but nothing came out. Finally, he put the locker down, unopened. “This chest— it’s full of things I don’t show people. Small pieces of my childhood.” 

Those blue eyes turned to her, bright and intense.

“Pieces of _me_ ,” he continued. “I want to take things apart, to learn. I want to _understand_ , everything _,_ ” and oh, _oh_ , how well Sara knew that feeling, “and there are memories and attempts to do that in there. But there is… something that has taken me time to understand.” When his hand closed over hers, big and warm and sending a ripple from her fingers down to her toes, the breath caught in her throat finally wheezed out. “You. You make my heart sing, Sara.” 

And there it was— that veil of peace she’d felt more and more from him, the comforting touch of Something There. Under his gaze, her heart beat wildly against her ribs, loud enough that if Jaal couldn’t hear it, she’d eat SAM’s router. As he leaned closer, the breath that shivered out of her was decidedly uneven, worse when his palm came up to cup her cheek. 

“I would like— I want us to be together, however that works,” Jaal whispered, as if she hadn’t been thinking those words in some way since she left her wits scattered on the floor of his tech lab the day he first kissed her. “I adore you.”

He was so _close,_ she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. Mere inches separated them, a distance both so short and somehow so vast. It took her a few moments, and a hesitant, “...Sara?” before Sara realized he was waiting for an answer— and she’d spaced on him. 

“Yes!” she said, too loud. Jaal started, then laughed, leaving a spreading pile of warm, goopy happiness where her heart used to be. God above help her, but that _smile._ “Yeah. I’d like that.”

It took every ounce of self-control she had, but somehow, Sara managed to wait for Jaal to close the gap between them. The last thing she saw before his lips met hers was the galaxy’s biggest smile spreading across his face, and then the world around them disappeared under an onslaught of memories. Two separate, alien lifetimes beat whisper-thin wings against them as her mouth opened under his and the snap-crackle-hum of bioelectricity washed through her. 

_Rain is thick on the wind snapping between them, but she smiles, laughs, presses her lips to his and tastes like sunlight and salt-scented breeze from the city. He looks into her eyes and is lost once, twice, again and forever. All in his mind, what little thought remains when he tastes her again, is that he has never been so grateful for the Vesaal._

_Her lips brush against mouthplates, firm and warm, stopping to giggle halfway through the kiss when her cheeks tickle from the fluttering mandibles. Youth-clumsy hands flit over her waist as the two of them curl together, shaking in fits of laughter. Friendship turned attraction-and-part-parental-rebellion is nothing compared to the security hanging over them low and heavy, comforting as a blanket_ — _at least until the bang on the window of the skycar startles them both apart with a yelp._

_Stones as tall as buildings surround him, powerful enough in their age to draw a quiet gasp from him. The Moshae takes his hand, smiles gently._ This is our history _, she whispers,_ and we must not let the aliens strip that from us _. The other students chatter amongst themselves, theorizing about what the Forge once was, but a memory-like tickle at the back of his mind brings an overlaying image of spices and fresh foods, words shouted in a dozen tongues._

Sara gasped, only dimly aware of being hauled against Jaal’s chest, his hands supporting her to get as close as possible. Visions sparked in her mind, bright and new, more powerful than the tech lab. Jaal’s current ran strong and true through her, a bond linking their minds. As if she were him, she felt the slipslidewarmth of his tongue stroking hers, the way she trembled in his grasp, and his delight when he finds her lurking whole and aware in the bond washed through both of them with the same intensity.

His rumble of, “ _Taoshay,”_ echoed in the electricity linking them, a word that packed so much into three small syllables: the warmth of Aya’s sun, the beauty of Voeld after they restarted the vault and the sky revealed its secrets, her stance calm and confident facing down Evfra at his worst. The terror of seeing her die by the Archon, only to rise again and forge them a path home. His pride, his love, all wrapped together, tumbling over one another blade-sharp and bright in that one word. Jaal’s thumb brushed her cheek on its way to tangle in her hair, gently guiding until the notes humming between them were sweet and clear again. 

Boring ass old rocks _, one of the marines scoffs, but no, this is so, so much more than that. Her imagination runs wild, even as she grips her M-8 close. Clear as day, she feels her father’s hands on her shoulders, his wanderlust raging through her veins, and as she kneels next to a cleared statue, the stone almost sings under her hand. Protheans may be long dead, but something still hovers between these ruins: a memory of life. A mystery to solve. A desperate, thrumming need for remembrance, for the immortality that comes only from having existed and been seen and left a mark on the galaxy._

_He has never seen stars so clear as he does this night, lying alone on the sand. A small, childish part of him wants to keen, to sing the song of grief, and cry out to the cold universe than it isn’t fair. Water tumbling over rocks creates music that weaves through the darkness, touches gentle hands to his aching heart. He was_ happy _for them, had felt no jealousy beyond a simple, honest loss. But the message that she’s gone, that they are now both gone, with only two small kits as proof of their lives, their love… the world weighs heavy on his chest and he swears vengeance on the kett, and watches the stars, because to look at anything closer would make him cry._

_The galaxy spins above her, slow and dizzying in its age. Scott’s head is heavy and warm on her shoulder, their fingers tangled the same way their minds are. Desert skies are so clear, so vivid in the summer, and even though she logically knows that the colors splattered across the Milky Way overhead are just reflections of light at different frequencies, there’s something... magical about it, somehow. Her quiet awe wakes Scott and he pulls her closer, their hearts beating as one._ Amazing, isn’t it _, he asks silently, and she can only agree in their wordless way._ Tomorrow, we’ll be up there. _Her shin still burns with their secret, but it is another layer of connection between them after years of being separated by duty, a promise that they’ll never be so separated ag—_

“Okay,” Sara said, pulling out of the kiss with a wheeze. The memory of Scott in the desert was so strong, she half-expected to taste the night-blooming cactus on the wind and to feel his hand in hers. “You’ve _got_ to explain how that works, it’s driving me nuts.” 

“I have been wondering that myself,” Jaal admitted, allowing her to lean back, steadying her when she wobbled. “I talked to Lexi about it—” 

Sara dropped her face into her palms with a pained, “Oh, God, _kill_ me,” but he ignored her, tweaking a lock of her hair as he continued.

“Her theory is that because emotions may be the result of small electrical pulses in both our species, and the heightened, ah, emotion is what the bioelectricity is connecting to...” He flushed, unable to erase the little half-smile lingering on his face. “When we are emotionally charged, the memories become visible and intense.” 

Sara stroked her fingers down the bony protrusions of his chest, vividly remembering the first time she’d touched him like that. Now that she knew how to look for it, knew more about his reactions, she could feel the nearly-subsonic vibration that came with happiness. 

_You can always come to me,_ he’d promised, and that was the moment, she thought, that marked the start of her fall for him. 

“Can…” Sara licked her lips briefly, throat going dry with the half-lidded way he was drinking her in. “Can we try a… less intense kiss? Maybe?” 

He didn’t answer in words, but something soft, almost tender, coiled through the electricity singing between them. And when his mouth met hers again, there was no spark, no crackle of memories to flood them out. Instead, a gentle warmth wound its way through her, a slow roll of the world under them. The press of his thighs under her, the flex of his hands at her waist, the way her name tasted sweet and tentative on his breath— all that enveloped her instead. When one of his hands trailed static up her spine as it tangled in her hair, she felt the burgeoning swell of a memory, but nudged it away. 

For a moment, Heleus was at peace. Her tired heart stuttered, nestled into the shelter of Jaal’s kiss, and quivered. Here, there was no war with the kett, no Angara dying by the dozens across a hundred worlds. For the first time since she’d woken only to hear the sizzle and pop of Scott’s cryo-pod, she felt like she was _home._ Like she could finally feel the hope that so many said she gave them.

“Better?” 

Opening her eyes to see the smug expression he wore was unnecessary. Sara smiled, laughing and locking her ankles around his hips when Jaal stood. 

“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to ignore the feel of his hands on the backs of her thighs for the sake of her sanity and self-control. “You can’t mean to debauch me already— your family is just outside.”

“Angara rarely care about such things,” Jaal murmured as he set her down. “But no. I have something else to show you.”

One brow raised, Sara let him herd her across the small room until she was half-sprawled across his floor, her head pillowed on her hands. From the corner of her eye, she watched Jaal as he pressed a small button next to the door and between one breath and the next, ribbons of light unfurled through the air— a galaxy wheeling in lazy arcs, dancing in a cloud of pixels. Somewhere behind her ribs, Sara’s heart stuttered again, the beauty of the hologram stealing her breath from her throat.

“Oh, _Jaal,_ ” she breathed, unable to tear her eyes away even as he sat across from her. Words piled on top of each other behind her lips, but she couldn’t separate anything coherent from the jumble. Finally, she managed, “You made this?”

“Long ago.” Jaal stretched out beside her with a sigh, soft and relieved, like he’d set down a heavy load. “It’s not… accurate. More of a dream, really.”

“It—” Sara started, but embarrassment caught up to her. Even now, even after months of being comfortable with him, with his customs, and his _openness,_ there were times self-consciousness kept her silent. 

He turned to her, starlight shimmering across his face, and something else— warm and breathless, new but not— stole her breath in place of embarrassment. “Yes, darling one?”

_How am I supposed to think when you’re looking at me like that?_

“It’s silly.” 

Jaal laughed softly, the tips of his fingers dancing across her cheek; he reached for her so easily, with no hesitation in his grace, and often. “We must all be silly once in a while,” he said. “We do grim but necessary work. How else can we balance our hearts, if not to laugh when we can?” 

Well. He had her there, didn’t he?

“Your star map. It’s…” Explaining might be easier if she weren’t looking at him, so she rolled and looked back at the illusion. “It’s not so much inaccurate, to me. It just looks like you took Heleus and crossed it with the Milky Way. Like there’s pieces of both galaxies there.”

A thoughtful hum drew her gaze as he sat up. “That would make it rather fitting, hm?” 

Smiling, Sara scooted until she was leaning against the far wall, her feet almost touching his. “I suppose it’s only fair,” she said, rolling up the right leg of her pants, “to exchange a secret for a secret.” As the cuff of fabric cleared her knee, the full length of her shin revealed the still-new-looking tattoo, vibrant and sharply lined. “Scott and I got these right before we shipped out on the Initiative.”

“This looks like the photo you showed me. With your family.” Jaal looked at her for permission before taking her ankle in his hands. (How could hands so big, so strong, feel so _delicate_?) “You called it ‘camping.’”

She nodded, smiling. “That was the idea, yeah. The last time we were all out there together, it was right before Mom got sick the last time. When we signed on with Dad, we knew it was possible we’d be assigned apart from each other— so we got these, as a reminder of good times, and family, and all the things that drew us out here.”

Her fingers drifted over the small outline of tents and cacti, tracing the expanse of the Milky Way arc wrapping up and around her calf, picked out in bold, swirling colors. Not unlike Jaal’s hologram. “It’s not accurate, either,” she said quietly. “But it’s a part of me— and a part of Scott. He designed the tattoo, and we split it into two. Half on my leg, half mirrored on his. So that we’d never really be apart, no matter how many light years were between us.” 

“Halves of a whole.” Jaal nodded, pulling her close. “I understand.”

Sara rested her head on his shoulder, breathing him in as his hand drifted down her back. She missed Scott with an ache so fierce, it was like the Scourge itself had burrowed itself into her nervous system right before removing a limb or three. With adaptation, with focus and effort and a little outside help, getting through daily life wasn’t as difficult as it could be. But it wasn’t the same, and there were still reminders of him, lonely, echoing places where he should have been to complete the arc: at the table, teasing Vetra, laughing with Liam. Tweaking her braid over Jaal. Notes of music drifting through the _Tempest_ at all hours, filling the empty spaces in their hearts effortlessly. 

“As much as I miss him,” she said, voice thick, “I think I miss what should be just as much. He should be here with me. With us.”

Jaal crooned softly. “I know, my darling,” he said. Pressing his lips to the crown of her head, he murmured into her hair, “He will be, soon. And for now, we still have family around us.” He paused, fingers stilling on her back. “My mother is going to love you. I’m… sorry.”

Before Sara could ask for clarification on that, someone pounded on the door with a snicker, announcing food.

*** 

Though her distress hadn’t entirely faded, Sara pushed enough of it aside to enjoy dinner with his family; at least, she seemed to enjoy it. Jaal firmly nudged the worry that her happiness was false aside in favor of fending off his family. Several of the Ama Daravs stole glances at her, their questions buzzing at his senses. Questions that were eagerly forgotten as Sara brought out the box of gifts they had purchased on Aya. With visions of fresh _elmohk_ dancing in their eyes, Jaal’s strange alien was an instant star— and they earned themselves a delighted whoop when he kissed the fruit juice from the tips of her fingers. 

“Why does she turn other colors?” Sahuna asked him, while Sara beamed and handed out the treats. “Is she ill?”

“She is embarrassed.” Jaal smiled, watching as she scooped up one of the kits and he shrieked with laughter. “Humans are more reserved in their affections.” 

“Hm,” was his true mother’s only response. Twice she had to jostle him with an elbow, reminding him to finish the dish he was holding, but there was no reprimand or judgement. His true mother had always been a romantic, since before he was younger than the kits chasing Sara, and though it was balanced with a brutal sort of practicality born of war, she still had stars in her eyes when love was involved. 

Jaal watched as Sara, flushed and gorgeous, fell to her knees. “Jaal!” She stretched out a hand, face contorting. “Jaal, help. They’re too much. I’m being overwhelmed!” No sooner than the words reached him, two of the kits leapt, tangling themselves around Sara until all three of them giggled helplessly. 

“She is good with the children,” Sahuna murmured. “Though strangers to her, she rolls with them and plays on their level. It speaks well of her.” 

As Jaal basked in the warm glow of Sahuna’s praise, a zippy twang resounded through the room and Baranjj hunched his shoulders against the stares. “A fantastic idea, brother!” Lathoul laughed, grabbing from the chest behind Baranjj and hauling out a few instruments. “Perhaps we’ll get a song out of Jaal this night.” 

“No,” Jaal countered, answering the unspoken anticipation of his family as all eyes turned to him. 

“Son of mine,” Sahuna began. 

Jaal rumbled out a warning, even as he answered, “Mother?”

“It has been many seasons since so many of us were safe here at home, and many more since we’ve had something to celebrate.” Her tone was sweet enough, but Jaal knew the sound of a trap snapping neatly around his ankle buried under the sugar. And, he admitted, even if he hadn’t confessed his feelings for Sara to her, Sahuna still would have cornered him into playing— just not as efficiently. “Perhaps you would play for us, and your guest?”

In truth, he’d suspected something like this would happen. It was a mark of how comfortable his family was with Sara, that they would bring out their instruments older than the oldest elder, more precious than any resource. Like all Angara, music entwined with the very heart and soul of the Ama Daravs, the lifeblood of what little culture remained to them. Their very bodies were made for making and celebrating music, and of all the ancestor stories to have survived the Dark Age, that the Song of the Yevara was the most complete could not be a coincidence.

A dark note shadowed his happiness for a moment, a reminder that those poor souls the kett exalted had their music stolen from them— had everything Angara stolen, but the loss of their music… but he swallowed thickly and accepted the _revaan_ from Baranjj with a mock scowl. 

“You, brother, are not subtle,” he chided, however gently. “A menace.” Baranjj laughed and shrugged, looping the room to nudge the kits into the uneven semi-circle already forming. 

Sara sat cross-legged near his right, one of the older kits claiming her knee as a perch, and Jaal allowed himself one final glance at her before closing his eyes, stilling his mind. Music, for him, was not a process; it was… an experience. It was thousands of years of history stolen from them, a few final specters coalesced and clinging to the universal— even pan-galactic— language of notes and tone and pitch. 

Jaal breathed deep, filling his lungs with the scents of family, and home, scents that spoke of love and safety. Scents rare enough in their war-torn galaxy to open his mind and heart to song, to allow contentment that everyone was full, and happy, and together. The hum started low in his chest, deep and rich, and rippled out to his hands; it thrummed through his core, vibrating his very bones, and the _revaan_ echoed as it sat on his lap.

***

Sara stared. It was probably rude of her, especially with mostly-strangers, but there was no other option. Unless you started breaking into poetry, and _she drank him in with her eyes_ and all that. Which, hey, Sara was a lot of things but it was better for everyone if she left the poetry to her brother; only the 600 years between here and the Milky Way saved her from being haunted by a few disastrous wooing attempts in her youth.

Jaal sat at the head of his family, an instrument with no strings in his lap. At first, it was so subtle, she wouldn’t have even heard anything if silence hadn’t thundered through the group, making room for the music to follow. The pitch was obviously just inside the lower range of human hearing, a noise somewhere between sound and feeling. It settled inside her chest, boldly using her ribs as an amplifier, stretching until it filled her whole heart.

She’d heard this before: after Tann sent her father’s locker, after she broke down whatever few barriers were left between them by sobbing in Jaal’s lap. He’d curled around her, making magic out of breath with the alien hollows of his body. Now, as then, his song rolled through her, leaving swells of emotion in his wake surer than any craft on still waters; the deep, rich melody ribboned through her memory, leaving her with the same quiet awe as staring up at a dark desert sky. The same awe that Aya’s verdant sprawl and Voeld’s neon sky and Eos’ deep, endless deserts left rolling through her. 

Sara was torn between watching his face, the smattering of speckles on his forehead and cheeks glowing faintly in the shadows of the room, and his fingers, drifting over the instrument and somehow changing the tones coming from it. A shift of his thumb brightened the song and in her mind’s eye, stars came to life in the darkness, like slow blooming nebulae. On her knee, one of the children swayed in time with the music, and to her right, Lathoul watched her with a kind smile on his face. 

“Enjoying the music?” he asked softly, somehow scooting closer without making a sound. 

“It’s,” Sara struggled for words, even as Jaal’s song swelled; her eyes watered, love in every beat of her heart, “it’s like nothing else I’ve heard in my life.” 

Lathoul nodded. He held out his hand, palm up, swaying gently to the new melody winding through Jaal’s baseline. “Jaal has said that you are sensitive to our currents,” he said. “Would you like to feel it as an angara does?” 

Sara hesitated only a moment, the barest hint of guilt still prickling up her spine. The last time she had seen any of Jaal’s family, Lathoul had been limping out of a shuttle, blood splattered across his shoulder from Teviint’s shot, and Sahuna’s beautiful face was etched with heartbreak and disappointment. Now, though… Sahuna watched Jaal, the potted ferns in the corners of the room playing gentle bioluminescence over her face with an air of serenity. And Lathoul waited, warm and patient. 

He smiled as she took his hand and seconds later, the electrical current echoing through the entire gathered clan grabbed her and pulled her into the collective. The room faded from her view, along with Jaal, leaving only the expanse of hearts and minds woven together with melodies. Surprise rippled through the family at her presence— _a human? Here?_ — but then warm acceptance, and the slightest whorl of pleased smugness, drifted over her. From the side, a new voice keened, folded into the heartbeat of the song, and then two more. 

Some part of her knew, deep in her human heart, that she was still seated at Lathoul’s side, that Jaal was less than ten feet in front of her. And if she really thought about it, she could identify at least one of the newer singers by the sound-feel of their current. But to her eye, images and colors burst into being, wrapped around her and pulled her into the living tale Jaal and his family spun. Nestled in the embrace of the song, Sara resisted the urge to analyze the phenomena, and settled for drifting along the music’s shoals, notes of stardust and memory and a little bit of romance swirling around her fingertips. Though she couldn’t see Jaal, she could _feel_ him everywhere around her: that solid, peaceful warmth, shaped by loss and will, cradled her. Tendrils of bioluminescence danced through her, answering the siren call of his song. 

Mighty yevara undulated under the ice, their winding songs echoing in the ice caves of Voeld— and then music simply peeled away eons of the Scourge, transporting the collective back to a time when the yevara surfaced and the seas of Voeld were warm and pure. Turquoise waves lapped around Sara’s ankles, inviting her to play, and a plume of water billowed into the air, the mist of the yevara’s breath catching the light of the auroras and hanging it over them like a tapestry of magic. White sand squished between her toes, and though she didn’t see anyone else, the content thrum of the collective Ama Daravs whispered that she was not alone. 

As Jaal played, Voeld faded from her memory, the song back to the gentle, soothing darkness of space. Starlight pooled at her feet, and as she watched, an angara stepped out of the dust of the nearest nebula, shimmering against the blackness of the galaxy. A crown of stars rested on his head, wreathing him with solar coronas, and he extended a hand out into the empty expanse. A moment later, another angara danced into being, ribbons of light cascading behind her. 

The pair circled, their steps at first counter to each other’s. By the third circle, though, their feet mirrored and the dance— that was the only word for it: _dance_ — had begun. _Shetara_ , Jaal’s voice whispered through the music, _the first-born mother. And Novosen, the first father._

Shetara spun threads from her consort’s crown, spooling raw matter into rough spheres. Her smile graced some of them with rings, blown into place with dust from her own starry skirts, as Novosen placed each new planet into the sky with gentility belying his enormous hands. Through the dance, Sara watched the entirety of Andromeda populated, over and over. Whispers of shelesh, words from angaran history, landed in her ears without meaning, naming each cluster of stars. 

Tendrils of thought caught up wisps of solar flares and cosmic dust, spinning them into beating hearts and sending them out into their creation, angara settling on worlds like falling stars. Sara’s eyes burned as Shetara and Novosen, their lives well-spent, slowed their dance. Time turned in the galaxy, worlds rising and falling in luminosity, until the pair spun in the center of their stars, their forms fading into the black hole that held everything together— and would eventually tear it all apart.

_From the stars we came,_ Jaal sang, and every voice in the room echoed back to him, _and to the stars we will return._

Slow, thick as cold nutrient paste, Sara was borne along the eddies of fading music until she was tucked back into her own body, the touch of the Ama Daravs a lingering memory as the collective drifted away. Tired and somehow… sated, in a way she knew she’d never be able to put into words, Sara opened her eyes and watched the family around her return to themselves. Lathoul still held her hand loosely, a contented smile on his face, and several of the children opened their eyes, yawned, and curled up to sleep on the nearest lap. 

Jaal rose to his feet, handing the instrument back to Baranjj— one of the voices that had woven into his song, along with, to Sara’s surprise, Teviint— and strode to her. With as much grace as possible after sitting in one spot for so long, Sara let him pull her to her feet. Such intensity burned in his eyes and she wondered, almost asked, if it still felt like the music thrummed in his heart the way it did in hers. 

She opened her mouth to ask, but before good sense or manners could argue, before she really even knew what she was doing, her hands fisted in his _rofjinn_ and tugged, almost pulling him off balance as she kissed him. 

***

It wasn’t the best kiss of Jaal’s life. It wasn’t even really a good kiss, all things considered: Sara didn’t so much kiss him as tackle him face first, noses and chins and teeth clacking together. And still— there she was, shining strong, the light of her biotics washing over him, finding handholds in his own current and sliding into it. Here was another kind of music, he thought, hands and heart filling with her. 

Here there were bright notes of pure joy, crisp, ringing through the shadows of war like shouts through a winter sky. Here, there was love, smooth and fluid and soft, the feel of velvety skin under his hands and the sleepy-eyed satisfaction of a long, winding night. A little lust sprinkled through the mix, red-edged surprises sizzling in the melody, and most of all, loudest of all, sheer, abiding _peace._ A sense of home, and belonging, an ached-for, deeply needed serenity to bring hope back to ragged hearts. 

The taste of Sara, the rightness of her love, poured into him, staggering in its purity. And there, across the short, crackling bridge, she lingered. 

_I see you,_ she whispered, wordless. _I love you, too._

Jaal’s heart shattered under that, lightning-fast. Whatever few pieces of him hadn’t belonged to her all sang out her name, accepting the soul-deep touch of a lover that had crossed galaxies to find him. Six hundred years, a different species entirely, and still, he couldn’t help but feel that this was what he’d been looking for his entire life. This bond, this love, raging through him and reshaping the very essence of him, was… was everything. 

No memories flickered behind his eyelids. No thoughts shared between them, aside from the one that shook his world. Just him, just Sara, and a shared breath, one beginning where the other ends. 

***

There were no suggestive comments as the airlock opened, but Kallo’s mouth quirked in what Sara recognized as a salarian smirk. She hunched her shoulders a little, Extremely Aware of Jaal’s hand on her low back, and Suvi turned. “When you’ve a moment, Ryder,” she murmured, eyes crinkling. 

“Right.” Sara’s cheeks heated and she ducked into the ready station, loudly banging and clanging whatever she could to keep herself from hearing any snickering. “Yeah!” she called. “Yeah, just a second, Suvi. I gotta… uh. I gotta organize Drack’s hammers for a sec.” Before she could think twice about it, she kicked one of the old ones out of the weapons stash, letting it ring sharp and piercing as it hit the floor. “You know our grumpy krogan, never keeps things in order.”

She felt more than heard Jaal’s amused snort as he passed behind her. “Rest well, sweet Sara,” he murmured, and then he was gone. And the knot in Sara’s chest started to loosen. Slowly, she eased down to the floor, one of the Krogan hammers between her knees and rested her forehead on its handle. 

“You okay, Ryder?” 

Sara didn’t look up as Kallo plopped beside her, his spindly fingers brushing her knee. After a minute, she opened her mouth to say something, closed it again, and shrugged. 

Kallo nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Even good things can be overwhelming.” 

See, that’s what she liked about Kallo. She didn’t have to _say_ anything for him to get what she was saying. It was nice. Not quite like having Scott back; Kallo was a fantastic friend, and understood emotions in a way no other Salarian she’d met did, but he didn’t know her inside and out like her twin. But in some strange, forlorn way, the friendship sparked up between long stretches of nebulatic space and surprisingly gossipy conversation held an understanding that didn’t quite fill the ragged hole in her heart, but still sanded down some of the rough edges. 

“...I don’t know how to deal with people liking me,” she finally said, eyes staring at the steel in her hands. In its wavery reflection, she didn’t look like the happy person who was finally free to love, and be loved. She just looked… tired. 

Kallo blinked. “Ryder, most people like you.”

“Nope.” She sighed, shifting her leg. “People like Pathfinder Ryder. People like the hero of the Paarchero, the vault strider of Voeld. They don’t necessarily like Sara Ellen Ryder, disaster extraordinaire.” The hammer felt good in her hand; almost too good. Part of her wanted to walk back out the airlock, and find some new and tiring quest to deal with her emotions. Or even to smash that hammer into the ground over and over, until her muscles shivered with exhaustion and her mind finally stopped running headfirst into every _what if_ it could find. “But… Jaal’s family, they liked _me._ It helped, sure, that I’m Pathfinder and all. But they liked me because he does. Because he thinks I’m a good person and I make him h— happy.”

Sara looked at Kallo as her breath hitched, and the familiar squeeze of pain pinged in her neck, SAM’s forewarned migraine thundering on the horizon. “...what do I do with that?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, levering herself from the floor and mopping at her face. “Set is a course for the Nexus, o, Pilot Mine. I am in desperate need of a nap, before I start squalling like a—” Her words cut off as two thin arms wrapped around her for a half second, squeezed, and then were gone. 

Kallo stepped back, blinking rapidly. “Humans do hugs, right? When they’re distressed?” The question must have been hyperbolic, since he continued on without waiting for her to answer. “Whatever the galaxy thinks of you, we like you for you, too, Ryder. The Ama Daravs aren’t the first people to care about the person under the Pathfinder, okay?”

She watched as Kallo flicked an amused finger and clanked the steel with a dull noise, (“Hammers, though, Ryder? Really?”) then headed back to the pilot seat, making the complex navigational equations look effortless. Sara hefted the hammer back into the weapons cabinet, biotic energy threading through her muscle with unconscious ease, and stopped at the open door. PeeBee pushed a welding mask up her fringe, winked at her, and resumed welding something onto Poc. 

As she walked, Sara watched her crew. Her family. _Their_ family, hers and Jaal’s. Drack harrumphed at her, a distracted snorty greeting as he tunneled through the cupboards, Lexi keeping half an eye on him as she wrote out medical notes. Probably some long-suffering treatise on the care and feeding of stubborn krogans. Liam and Cora whooped, echoing from the Nomad’s bay, followed by the dull-hollow sounds of a rubber ball bouncing on metal. For a change, Gil lounged on one of the crew bunks, the ship’s pyjack curling its tail around his wrist as he read. 

Vetra leaned against the side of the bay door, mandibles flickering in amusement as Cora body-checked Liam for an impromptu goal through a strung up spare tire. “What… are they doing?” Sara asked, one brow ratcheting up. The game, whatever it was, looked like some mish-mash combination of several sports, with two different types of goals, the necessary jeers and catcalls, and a lot of breathless grins. 

“I haven’t got a clue, Ryder,” Vetra said. “The rules seem to change every time I blink. Jaal’s been down there ten minutes and already got a face full of ball twice— not in any kind of metaphorical way, either. They’re both gonna come out bruised as hell, but.” She shrugged. “At least they’re having fun?”

Those too-perceptive eyes swept over her once, head to toe, then narrowed. “Officially,” Vetra started, too casually, “you and Jaal were making nice with the locals in ‘diplomatic relations.’” 

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” Sara asked dryly. 

Vetra handed her a datapad without looking. “Tann threw a polite hissy fit that we weren’t en route to the Nexus, so we— being Drack and myself— just as politely told him to frag off. I hope it wasn’t in vain.” 

Sara scanned the email, winced at the wording, and then braced herself on the handrail to watch the game wind down. Jaal’s eyes met hers through the bay window and she shivered, every nerve along her spine lighting up like Christmas lights at his soft smile. After a moment of silence, she sighed. “They like me. His family.”

Vetra laughed softly. “Only you could make that sound like a bad thing, Ryder.” Three taloned fingers ruffled Sara’s hair, Vetra’s subvocals running to affectionate teasing. “They like you. He likes you. We’re all a big, happy family, and you got your man. Now get back to work, you semi-ethical slacker.” 

The laughter that bubbled up between them washed away the last of the jitters, and even helped lessen some of the brewing headache, leaving only a contented peace in its wake. Sara blew a kiss towards Jaal and headed back down the hall, intent on taking that nap after all. 

If she could stop smiling long enough, that was.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to keep in the spirit of Angara being African coded (among other cultures as well) and did some research on musical traditions that could be incorporated. Some parts of Africa have a form of bard who is often known for wit, leadership, and strong local history roots. Adding to that some lore of of the Welsh bard— traveling storyteller and occasional historian— and some instruments loosely based on both electrical current and bardic/griotic tools of the trade, and you have this long, lovely piece of domestic, romantic fluff with a dash of angst.


End file.
